certainly their
was tend to be collectivist and
and and
they were National Socialists
as opposed
to being internationalist but
when they
when they get into power they
they tend
to really really tear things
down and
don't give us yeah well I I
think
there's an explanation of this
it's um
what Hegel calls the labor of
the
negative right that the initial
instinct
on the left is that negative
instinct
things are wrong and it must
they must
be rectified
they can only be rectified
however by
the seizure of power and so
we're going
to seize power in order to
rectify them
but once you've got the power
the
negative is still there in your
heart
because that it's driven you
all along
you know that's the thing that
has
inspired you so you set about
destroying
things at punishing people you
Indic you
find classes who are to blame
you know
the Jews the bourgeoisie
wherever it
might be and you don't get out
of that
negative structure and I feel
that's
what I felt very strongly in
1968 you
know that okay of course there
are
things that are wrong in France
but
there are also things that are
beautiful
them right and you've got to go
through
this and come back and rescue
those
things which is much more
important than
destroying a few obstacles along
the way
right
Blake has a interesting the he
says the
hand of vengeance found the bed
to which
the purple tyrant fled the iron
hand
crushed the head and came a
tyrant in
its stead and that tends to be
a pattern
that we see again and again
that when if
you have for instance in Iran's
a good
example of that I mean Civ
aquas was one
of the major reasons for the
revolution
itself because the heavy
handedness of
the Shah is his secret police
which he
probably had no idea they very
often
live in these silos and bubbles
yeah but
they've got you know the secret
police
the apparatus all comes back
yeah and
and the disappearing the people
that
disappear all disappear again
so I mean
this is
part of the problem but again
it's still
this fundamental problem for
instance I
mean one of the things that
that you
talked about in in fool's
frauds and
firebrands is is the idea of
power being
the way in which everything is
articulated that the critique
is about
power I mean Foucault is a good
example
of that of somebody who just
saw
everything in terms of power
but there's
there's definitely truth
embodied in
that and I think that's why
it's so
seductive for so many people
I mean we have to deal with
with the
fact that so many people are
seduced by
this because they experience
especially
marginalized and
disenfranchised people
yes that is true
but of course in the
intellectual world
it's extremely corrupting to
see things
in this Foucauldian way you
know you
instead of asking the question
is what
her hands are saying true I ask
the
question you know what power is
advancing behind that you know
you then
disappear from the picture
right and
also what you've said
disappears from
the picture yeah I'm not no
longer
engaging with you I - thou at
all right
because without the concept of
truth
there is no real engagement
between
people all I am seeing is the
power
that's speaking through you and
that of
course you can look at the
whole of
culture in that way which is essentially
what the postmodern curriculum
is taking
one writer one philosopher one
musician
after another and just talking
about you
know Susan McCleary on
Beethoven that
this is fantasies of rape
speaking
through this music you know
it's
extremely boring after works is
totally
panicking it lands I mean
things I say
about critical theorists you
know that
if it was a lens that it might
be useful
sometimes to just peer through
that lens
but but it's a corneal
transplant you
know and a big metaphor yeah it
becomes
the only way yeah and I've seen
one of
the things that I've seen with
students
in my own teaching experience
is you
know I've had critical
theorists in my
classes and whenever they raise
their
hand I
could almost verbatim tell them
what
they're going to say the
response that
they're going to give to
whatever was
said yes and and well then we
need to
understand why it is so
seductive that's
my point
it troubles me how seductive
it's been
and it also I grapple in my own
self
with the amount of genuine
injustice in
the world you know that takes
place on a
daily basis and I mean for
instance you
know their attacks on
capitalism to me
the corporate world today is so
powerful
and to use a favorite term in
that in
that world is hegemonic you
know this
idea where monoculture becomes
becomes
so imperious and we've seen so
many I
mean I'll give you an example
when I was
young one of the treats in my
supposed
to go to a bookstore bookstores
have
pretty much been wiped out in
the United
States because of these
corporations so
small bookstores are not able
to survive
so now you have you you had
borders but
then borders goes bankrupt mmm
and and
then now we've got we're left
with
Barnes and Noble and and and so
if you
go in who's picking those books
who's
actually choosing what books
like if you
go for instance to to the teen
section
it's almost all about vampires
and
really weird occult and stuff
it's not
like you know the Hardy Boys or
Nancy
Drew mysteries it's it's very
corrosive
ideas we slightly changed the
topic now
we're not really talking about
this
postmodern obsession with power
right we
are we're talking about well
changing
the structure of life right and
but for
me a lot of I mean I'll give
you an
example
Herbert Marku say who I'm not a
fan of
button by any stretch but when
when I
read some of his works I was
struck by
real insights about things that
were
very troubling about American
culture
one dimensional man
this idea of a consumer and and
life as
consumption and and and losing
me I mean
his solutions is a whole other
problem
but and this is something I
think that's
very seductive is that the the
critical
aspect of of Marxism and neo
Marxism has
always been it's always had a
resonance
in a lot of people there's
something
very very powerful about it
when you
when you get to solutions and
how we
deal with these things we're in
another
realm but if if I think if
conservatives
don't really address the the
real
serious critiques that are
there you
know about the status quo yeah
I think
you're right they have they
have perhaps
neglected those critiques but
you know
as I saying earlier the purely
negative
approach to the status quo is
simply
going to perpetuate this
negativity and
has done if you're not the
typical
conservative in my reading of
events is
someone who looks around
himself and he
finds things that he loves you
know
anything's when those things
are
threatened they're vulnerable
I've got
to protect right and it's not
often that
you find on the left somebody
who looks
around and finds things that he
loves
it's um it's always something
that's
gone wrong something that is
even
hateful and you've got to
mobilize
against it if you've lost any
sense that
actually the world is lovable
and that
there are things there for to
be rescued
in it you have actually lost
the sense
of why there is such a thing as
a
community in the first place
and that I
think is one of the things that
I felt
very strongly throughout my
life that
that there really are wonderful
things
that we've inherited all
Americans
however whatever position in
society
they are are still heirs to
something
rather remarkable you know a
rule of law
which has goes on perpetuating
itself
from generation to generation
if they if
only people knew how rare that
was they
would see that they've got a
fight to
preserve it you know
and the same with so many other
institutions that we yeah no I
couldn't
agree with you more I think one
of the
most one of the most
interesting things
and Gwen we were talking about
Gwyn
earlier the grammarian one of
the things
that Gwyn points out and it
really
struck me in his little book on
grammar
that made quite a splash I
think in the
UK one of the things that he
points out
is that language our English
language
has not changed a great deal I
mean the
conservation of the language
this site
could be because there's a lot
of people
that the the descriptivists
will just
say that language is whatever
people use
but there is a reason to hold
on and to
preserve language because if we
allow
language to dissipate into
private
languages we lose the ability
to
communicate as a culture or a
civilization that is all true
but also
equally true is a fact that
languages we
inherited is not the product of
a single
person or it's the evolved gift
of
generations and and it
contained in
every word there is a kind of
history of
the human condition
we're actually inheriting
wisdom with it
with language these words make
distinctions that we couldn't
have ever
made ourselves right without
their aid
and so but we are living
entering a
world where grammar is not
given the
importance of it that it
deserves one of
the things and and talk for me
I mean
conserving language is
extremely
important and and it was an
obsession of
Muslims the idea the Quran in
essence
almost froze the Arabic
language in a in
a in a period so the the ideal
of Arabic
will always be the Quran and
and in some
ways the the King James Bible
did that
to English to a certain degree
yes it
did or interestingly of course
the King
James Bible isn't unashamedly a
translation you know and the
Quran as
and is what I mean most Muslims
don't
accept that it can be exactly
translated
because it has a it has a perfection
of
its own I course it was recited
when you
know more about this three is
recited
long before it is written down
right and
and then it had achieved a kind
of
statuesque quality that that
our Bible
has never has never managed but
you know
grammar the grammar of the King
James
Bible is often quite unorthodox
and and
it it's a very strange book and
we now
look is the book that made our
seventeenth and eighteenth
century
literature arguably it's it's
the book
also that made some of the
greatest
orators and
in our civilization yes I mean
Lincoln
Lincoln's Lincoln's reliance
and
dependence on on the King James
Bible
was immense but hardly any
Church now
uses it my Church the Anglican
Church
does use it but only in certain
little
places and in villages or in hi
Sara
monile occasions I mean most of
it for
the most part is the new
English Bible
that has replaced it there you
went to
grammar schools and and and and
they've
been largely the attack on
grammar
schools has been amazing
because it's
been seen as an elitist
enterprise and
one of the things that's that
struck me
I read a book by David Mulroy
called the
Warwick against grammar it was
quite an
eye-opening book for me because
one of
the things that in teaching our
students
Arabic it's very difficult
because many
of them have very little
English grammar
yeah and and traditionally
grammar
grammatical languages I mean
all all
languages are grammatical but
by that I
mean a language that is almost
impossible to understand
without
knowledge of grammar like
Arabic because
it's inflected and because it
the verbs
are conjugated and so if you
don't have
some understanding of that it
becomes
very difficult but david moore
roy makes
this argument that in the 1960s
early
60s in the u.s. there was
actually a
movement to stop teaching
grammar and
they saw it as very abusive to
children
and but but what's interesting
he has
he has something that I've
replicated in
several classes I on average
I'll take
50 students I give him the
opening
sentence to the Declaration of
Independence when in the course
of human
events it becomes necessary to
the end
of that sentence it's it's it's
a
sentence that has several
subordinate
clauses and I all I ask the
students is
identify the main point of this
sentence
now these are college students
on
average out of 50 students I'll
get two
or three that actually can
identify the
main clause and and so there's
a type of
higher illiteracy that that the
fact
that grammar has been removed
and I
think a restoration of language
is the
only thing for me the the
salvation of
the civilization has to be
predicated on
the resurrection of the
corruption of
this language well I think
you've
actually touched on what the
real
essence of conservatism is
there you
know that that there are things
that the
conservation of which is
actually
fundamental to understanding
the world
as it is and if you lose those
things
like the rules of grammar the
habits of
good speech or good manners the
sense of
what a legal solution
as opposed to a mere bullying
solution
to a conflict might be all
those things
we we used to be taught to us
as part of
becoming an adult if you lose
those
things you're at sea in the
world and I
think that's one of the things
that that
most worries me about modern
education
you refer to the this movement
in our
schools to abolish grammar as
elitist
it's absolutely true that a
grammar is
elitist because it makes a
distinction
between the people who know it
and the
people who don't and that's the
kind of
distinction that we all need if
we're to
survive not only as a
civilization but
as individuals too so this is
where are
the real arguments for
conservatism in
my view should be based not in
their
economic sphere at all but in
these
fundamental cultural inheritances
and
yeah I couldn't agree with you
more
and I think it's very one of
the things
that really troubles me we had
recently
a professor I think down in
Southern
California at a major
university who was
considered racist because he
was
demanding that the students use
proper
grammar and so the minority
students
objected to that because they
felt that
it was discriminatory and and
and one of
the things about in our culture
and I